


Biology and Blood-Debts

by Shachaai



Series: Vampire AU [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Other, Priests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-21
Updated: 2011-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Or, Where Francis Talks About Vampire Stuff) </p><p>Francis and Arthur have a charming discussion about vampiric vows, dietary habits, and just <i>how</i> long Francis intends on making himself a nuisance in Arthur's life. Arthur likes none of the answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Biology and Blood-Debts

**Author's Note:**

> So before I hit Hetalia I was almost solely involved in the CLAMP fandom – and in particular, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. Those who know TRC will know what I mean when I say interesting conversations can crop up in that fandom about vampirism, and what happens when vampirism meets magic and basic biology.
> 
> Part of the following arose after a discussion with a medical professor friend – well, technically, we were discussing the state of cadavers at universities after students have been at them and why decapitation is something that shouldn’t be brought up in conversation whilst unsuspecting innocents are attempting to drink their tea, but this came up as an off-shoot. It’s been done before in other places/fandoms, but I think the point’s still applicable in this AU. And my Arthur!muse asked, so he deserves everything he gets.
> 
> This takes place not so long after Francis and Arthur 'meet' - Arthur’s only a deacon at this point, for those of you who might spot the change in title. If the above little ramble didn’t bother you, nothing in the rest of this will probably bother you either.

“I want to rescind your vow.”

Francis doesn’t bother to look up when Arthur speaks, too busy shredding the bread roll that had been part of his evening meal into little more than white crumbs across the tabletop. For Arthur, it had been supper. For Francis, it had probably been breakfast. (God only knows; Arthur had asked where Francis had bedded down during the day that first night after the vampire had left his immediate care, and what the frog had done with himself when out of Arthur’s sight. He’d received nothing but innuendo and perverted comments for his troubles, and so Arthur had never asked again.) They dine together after the sun sets in the bar-area of the inn Arthur has temporarily called home, Francis coming in for the night to smile his charming smile at the barkeeper’s daughter and to casually inquire after Arthur’s ailing health. Arthur can’t forbid him from unwarded areas in this place – inns are public ground.

“You cannot,” Francis states baldly, and continues tearing apart his bread with long fingers, solely devoted on his self-appointed task. (Why he’d bought it if he only planned to destroy it Arthur doesn’t know, and has seen the frog waste far too many other things already in the span of their brief – _entirely_ too long – acquaintance to care to ask. Francis had bought their meal, pulling the coins needed from the inside pockets of his overcoat. The overcoat which he _hadn’t_ been wearing the other day. Arthur doesn’t know where Francis gets the fine clothes he always shows up in – ‘the _height_ of fashion,’ Francis assures Arthur every time he catches Arthur’s gaze on him. Francis assures Arthur of many things, but the only thing Arthur’s ever assured of is that the blood-sucker is a pretentiously mysterious pain in the arse.) They both ignore the other patrons around them; the world is the round table between them and nought else.

“And why can’t I?” Arthur asks, and pitches his voice at an irritated enough level for Francis to realise that he’s perfectly set on this issue, and is duly bothered enough by it to continue to bother the frog until he has received a satisfactory answer. Francis _knows_ what Arthur is capable of already, knows that Arthur would have very little qualms about going for the vampire’s head or heart or throat across the small inn’s table between them. (But then, a small voice inside Arthur – _irritatingly_ reasonably – points out, Francis also knows Arthur is currently weak, almost two pints of blood down after giving it to Francis as meals over two weeks, to heal the vampire’s wounds as Arthur had promised. A vow for a vow.)

“Because you cannot,” Francis says, and sets down what’s left of his roll, flicking crumbs off from where they cling to his elaborate cuffs. _French dandy._ “My blood-debt exists whether you agree to it or not, and it is more troublesome to me left unpaid.”

“I really don’t care for your troubles, frog,” Arthur tells him – and is almost swallowed up by Francis’ eyes when the vampire finally looks up at him, slit-narrow and magnetically _blue._ A wolf in sheep’s clothing – Arthur knows it, knows it well, but still he cannot help but stare at the sight of the hell-spawned animal behind the angel’s face. _Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horn –_

_ “Care, _ ” Francis says, and leans forward a little way to take Arthur’s palm between his hands whilst Arthur is transfixed, laying a kiss to its back before turning it over to press the same on the inside of the deacon’s wrist. He has a damnably soft mouth – damned and damning, Lord preserve them, Arthur, and any unfortunates who’d met it. It goes with his snake’s tongue and fangs – white-sharp, Arthur feels those fangs flat against the fast-beating pulse in his veins, Francis’ lips curved up in a knowing smile. “I care for yours, mon petit.”

Arthur indignantly snatches his hand back, and deliberately scratches the bastard frog’s jaw with his nails on the way. “ _You cause them all,_ ” he snaps, and tries to rub the feel of Francis’ traitorous mouth off on the cassock’s cloth over his thighs. His cheeks are red – he can feel them burning, and the heat in his face echoes the embers smouldering low in his belly, pinpricks ablaze and aching on the side of his neck. Arthur’s head hurts.

The frog just continues to smile, low-lashed over the animal-eyes the inn’s light seems to deliberately avoid. It catches in his hair instead, evening gold, and it’s just so. So supremely _unfair,_ because the most beautiful things ought to die to have meaning, but this vam- this _leech_ seems to give his own meaning to himself. 

“So many,” the bastard-born son of the _Devil_ queries, playfully light, “so soon?”

“So many, so soon,” Arthur confirms, entirely more dourly. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

“Because I am what I am, and those like I am must pay debts like these. It is…” Francis pauses, waving one hand lazily in the air. “It is _unpleasant,_ mon cher, if we do not.”

“You’re going to hell anyway -”

“So say you.” Francis seems more amused than offended at Arthur’s announcement – so Arthur glares at him. “But – _non,_ the unpleasantness is a living one. Per’aps it is meted out by God to the most faithless among us who you call faithless, per’aps not. It occurs all the same, and I would not have it occur to me for the likes of _you_. So you are stuck with me.”

It’s not a pleasant thought. “For how long?”

The frog just shrugs, a fluid ripple of movement, and looks over Arthur’s shoulder. “For however long it takes me to repay the debt.”

“ _Wonderful,_ ” Arthur mutters to the tabletop, glowering at the wood-grain as Francis beckons one of the serving maids over to fetch them new drinks. She lingers a while, resting her weight on the seat’s back behind the vampire and leaning in when he tucks a stray curl of her hair behind her ear – but she jumps when Arthur coughs pointedly, hastily departing with the used plates from their meal. Francis sighs melodramatically; Arthur just folds his arms across his chest and leans back in his seat. “Must you?”

_ “Oui. _ ” There are still crumbs on the table; Francis idly flicks at them, picking them up with his fingertips before discarding them on the inn’s floor, huffing at nothing.

“…Why did you order bread, anyway?” Arthur asks him, watching as the frog gives up on his fastidious work to just sweep the whole lot off the table and into the dirt of the floorboards. Being stuck for God knows how long with someone so utterly _whimsical –_ “The rest of the food too. It’s not like you need it.”

Francis looks at him again, and Arthur feels pink beginning to return to his cheeks. “No?”

“But you -” unconsciously, Arthur reaches one hand for his neck, fingers splayed over where Francis had bitten him, thumb resting in the hollow of his throat. He can feel his Adam’s apple beneath the collar of his cassock when he swallows, Francis’ gaze deliberately dropping to rest on that hand. 

“But _I_ ,” the vampire – _leech –_ agrees, teasing once more in his mimicry, so Arthur scowls. “Do you like it?”

_ “That-! _ ” Arthur slams his hands down on the table and _yells –_ but reigns himself in almost immediately when his outburst draws attention, heads in the bar swivelling around to stare at the two men sitting in the corner. He slinks back down into his chair instead, blushing bright red (how his body has enough blood left for him _to_ go red is a miracle) and hissing to the vampire muffling his laughter behind one elegant hand. (Arthur wishes the bastard would _smother himself._ ) “ _I’m not my own food source._ ”

“You’d make an interesting roast,” Francis says conversationally – and Arthur _snarls._ The only thing that stops the deacon reaching out to _throttle_ the bearded-bastard across from his is the return of the serving maid again, leaving their drinks and vanishing almost immediately after glancing at the dark look on Arthur’s face.

Francis, of course, ignores the threat of _imminent death_ being radiated at his corpse, and idly taps at the glass of his – wine? Wine. Of course, the frog drinks pond-water. 

“Those of my ilk,” he says, and of course he says it like _that_ because no-one ever admits to vampirism in public who hopes to live any longer than a week, “tend to supplement their diets with… _other options._ They’re almost totally unnecessary nutritionally speaking – but…people don’t lose their tastes, just because they change.”

_ Euphemisms.  _ “They just prefer the taste of a certain thing _more,_ ” Arthur says sharply – and swipes for Francis’ hand when the frog tries to pat him conciliatorily on the arm.

“So glad you understand, mon cher,” Arthur would be glad to show the hellspawn his ‘understanding’ with a silver knife. “And there are…disadvantages, you could say, to a restricted diet.”

Arthur frowns. “…Oh?”

“Tell me, mon angelot,” Francis says, and leans in close with that _smile_ on his face as if to confer all of time’s secrets with his low, low voice, “have you ever tried to…ah, _relieve_ yourself after drinking nothing but liquids for a fortnight?”

Arthur freezes as that thought settles in - and then promptly goes scarlet once more, flustered – attention be _damned –,_ scrambling away from the other beside him, knocking the table and upsetting their drinks.

Francis just laughs at him and Arthur, foreseeing just an inkling of their long, arduous future to come, starts devising the start of a mental list of the many, _many_ creative ways he can torture and torment the godforsaken vampire before sending the bastard blood-sucking leech straight to hell.


End file.
